Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Unveils Net Tracking Tag for Online Sales
openbear writes "A story over at MSNBC talks about the Global Release Indentifier (GRid). It is a code akin to the Universal Product Code (UPC) bar code found on a CD or cassette tape in stores. Each track will be distributed online with an individual GRid serial number and will be reported back to rights societies and collection agencies sold or transferred."
... be embedded in CD audio tracks and used to track piracy or... Used to show which versions of songs are crappy quality, RIAA Fakes, etc....
What, me Tweet?
Did you read the article? This isn't an attempt to curb piracy. While the MSNBC article is a bit unclear as to why this needs to be done, here's what was said, "But music officials have complained that sales-tracking systems in place at the moment need to be standardised so that online sales, though small at the moment, can be better recorded." This isn't a way to put a tracker in an mp3 so the RIAA can track down the person who is distributing it but merely a way to keep track of sales.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
The article seems to get the basic premise of this wrong. A UPC code describes only the product; the buyer is still anonymous. The only reason a reseller would have to buy millions of GRid's would be if each track sold was unique (as opposed to each type of song sold). Either the RIAA's layers did a good job of fooling Reuters, or they just didn't understand the implications of this... and the implications are exactly what they deny-- that songs bought on the internet could be tracked to the buyer if they ever end up being shared.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
its not for tracking files on file networks, so far. But if this is used to track files downloaded from a certian place, say www.my_cool_site.com and it ends up on Kazaa or whatever, would my_cool_site.com get charged more?
But honestly, once it hits P2P, that doesn't matter since it'll be all over the place in a matter of hours.
What, me Tweet?
Could this be similar to a custom watermark on each individual song or piece that's sold?
How tamper-proof will this be? If all of the on-line sources that will be selling musing/videos/whatever are to be expected to issue these watermarks, the standards would have to be public, or at least very darn near public.
If the standards are even close to being public, perhaps someone could figure out how to remove and or alter these watermarks.
Hmm, very interesting. I buy a song from MSN. I read the file into a scrip that I hacked. I change the watermark in some way. I then turn around and sell it under the table. The buyer takes the song and then in turn sells it, or whatever.
Sometime later, someone gets raided by the SPA,
MPAA, or whatever. They audit the songs. They find a few with the watermark that I altered. Their trail will be lost or steered into some poor victim whose watermark I 'stole' to alter my songs.
A possible solution to this would be to have a secret algorithm to generate the watermarks. This would have to be implemented in tamper-proof chips or, perhaps, a tamper-proof device that goes between your computer and the network; ie; a special NIC card. The card would know who you are and what song you are about to release. It would then generate and record the water mark in it's secret way before the song is sent on its way.
The logistics of this solution would be challenging. The devices would have to be distributed, cataloged, and recorded. Who has which special NIC card would have to be recorded in RIAA'a TIA infrastructure. Of course, this same infrastruction would have to record each subsequent sale/disposal of the card. The security of the cards would have to be impeccible.
Good luck to you all!
Luv
Mark
Cleara
Everyone here is freaking out because this is another way to track people, and man it's a blatantly obvious one. But do you really believe that the techies and people working at the RIAA are that stupid? Like really?
The RIAA wouldn't do something so obviously usable as a tracking method and then deny it. They didn't in the past. When they were violating your rights, they were up right and in your face about it. That's why so many people despise them. They don't try to hide what they do.
I think this may be a legit way for them to just track for internal records and all, and yes, I am pretty sure they as well as you have thought about the possibility of tracking individual downloaders with this. But like someone already said.
MP3 -> Wave -> MP3 , no more tracking code.
Or even better
Clean CD -> MP3 , No tracking code.
I think that logic would be clear to anyone. Including the RIAA.
The sky isn't falling, the RIAA is just playing some games.
~ kjrose
We run an ASP with music sales where they are watermarking mp3 files during the encoding process. That way they can see if their files make it onto file trading networks. Since the watermark is encoded into the actual track, you can't remove it by converting to Ogg. It's already an mp3.
I don't think it is a bad idea. At least they are selling the files in MP3 format. The only people who would have anything against this would be those who download music they haven't paid for.
IMHO.
Unlikely they will go for a new format - that approach has failed in the past. More likely they will embed the tag in the music, inaudible to humans but detectable for computers, like is already being done for images. Of course, any tag _they_ can detect can also be detected and garbled|stripped by others, something which is likely to happen when songs are encoded as OGG Vorbis or MP3.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
The GRid is a point of sale identification so that the seller can identify which track has been sold and then send the appropriate $ to the recipient (RIAA member).
You can view this as the thin edge of the wedge in a scheme that will probably work to get a "Palladium" like system in place.
Bob buys track 9 from CD X from Amazon. Amazon records the GRid and forwards the appropriate share to RIAA member reponsible for producing the track. Bob is happy because he was able to access the track.
Later Bob will be investigated for file shareing. He will not have the GRid's to prove he bought the file. The GRid's are not part of the music track. The RIAA will say but "Palladium" can solve that. Bob will ask to have "Palladium" implemented so that he does not have to go to jail.
In the past 20 years, music has changed quite a bit. There are many more genres of music nowadays, and many more bands, and many more one-hit-wonder type bands.
The recording industry obviously knows this - most of the big ones have different divisions for different genres, and there are hundreds of smaller companies now that deal with specific styles of music. Despite this, they still try to sell music in the exact same way - you buy an entire album, and get all the songs on it, regardless if you only actually like or want one or two songs. From a consumers point of view, you're now paying ~$15 to be able to listen to that one song.
From the article:
They need to take this as a sign: its time to wake up, start doing what consumers want, and sell individual songs. Obviously, tradional methods for this don't make sense - the overhead in producing a CD (printing, packaging, shipping, etc) with one or two songs doesn't make it worth it. But the internet provides a perfect medium for this by eliminating most of the overhead costs.
The industry is in turmoil right now anyways. The RIAA is bringing lawsuits to everyone they can. Then theres the media companies:
- Sony has their music division, which grosses something like $6 million/year. They also have Sony Electronics, which makes things like portable MP3 players, CD burners, etc. This division grosses $40 million/year.
- AOL Time Warner is another one. Time Warner has an entertainment divison, selling CDs, etc. AOL is an internet service provider, and obviously one of the reasons people use internet is for downloading music.
All of a sudden, it starts making sense why these companies remain tight-lipped about the RIAA's actions and things like the DCMA.(The sony example was originally from the radio show "The Ongoing History of New Music" by Alan Cross, which did a very interesting show a while back on how the music industry works. Sorry, I can't find a link)
Speak before you think
and zero out the tag.
Problem solved.
Oh my shades... when will these guys realize that the bulk of sales come from word of mouth and it is "Convenience" which promotes and sells a product. What they need is something so convenient that people won't use file sharing... why would someone spend 20 minutes downloading music and burning it when they could have what they want on a format which is quicker.
I would love it if they would adopt some sort of Secure Digital card format... I could buy tracks and throw them on there.. quick.. no loss of quality.. no CD to skip.. I could update online, at an HMV or at a kiosk... how would I pay? Credit card, pay cards (like phone cards), or heck.. debit...
I think, as someone mentioned in reply, that the difference is one of scale - if they were to only go after the big fish, it would effectively weed out the pirates from the multiple site users. One brightline would be a P2P server - that can pretty much be assumed to be piracy in most instances (if the RIAA can SEE the server, it's public)
Naturally, what this comes down to is "will they EVER endorse fair use." My plan assumes they do, or would - after all, if they can nail pirates, what's the harm in fair use? It completely negates all their arguments except one...namely, that they want us to buy a separate copy for every place we want to listen to the song.
I didn't express it well in my original post, but if the community accepts the tags, it would serve as a perfect litmus test for where the RIAA stands on fair use when the spectre of piracy has been dealt with. In other words, I like the tags idea because it strips them of excuses. We know that "anti-fair-use" is already the position of the MPAA, as Jack was kind enough to provide great quotes like "What is fair use? There's no such thing..." and "If you lose your copy, you buy another..." Let's see where the RIAA stands on this when piracy goes out the window.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
This still stands as the worst excuse for music piracy (and the most popular) that I have seen ... because i don't want to pay. It doesn't even consider any copyright issues like fair use or public benefit. Just straight to the issue of I don't accept that the record companies have a right to set a price for their product or services in excess of what I can get it for from a file share network ie zero. And then you tell us that he (or you) wouldn't pay for it even if there was a reasonable price set because you don't participate in the general finance system
Buy the bloody single if you only want the hit. And don't tell me how they're not value for money. That's just "I don't want to pay, that much".
Or tape it off the FM radio. You can get a listenable quality mp3 from fm without much trouble.
Or better yet why not work 40 hours a week (stuff the unfair labour laws) and then he'll be able to afford more CDs. Or steal the green cash from someone. Its only a piece of paper.
Kids are smart, far smarter than the people that try to maintain their grip on the music industry.
The ability to use Kazaa does not count in any determination of what is smart. Nor should it.
If something must be paid for there will always be someone that will find a way to get it for free.
That's better. Why should I pay for it if I can get it for free. That I can understand.
I predict to see a tool to strip the tags on freshmeat the next day..
So what. The online stores are only counting them out so they can keep track of sales for the record companies in a single format. Did you really think that that was the best the RIAA could come up with in their attempts to stop piracy. RIAA might not be smart but they aren't really stupid.